The Greek crisis: 9 questions you were too embarrassed to ask
by Dylan Matthews
Greece is falling apart. The unemployment rate is 25 percent — down from a peak of 28— and four in ten children live in poverty. In the wintertime, Athens is overcome with smog as residents too poor to afford electricity burn everything and anything they can to stay warm. The income of the country's rich, once inflation and taxes are taken into account, is back where it was in 1985. The poor are back where they were in 1980. And this weekend, things hit a new low, as fear of a total financial meltdown grew so widespread that Greeks emptied over a third of the country's ATMs on Saturday in a desperate attempt to pull out as much money as possible before the banks collapse.
The crisis is at a pivotal moment now, but it has been brewing for years. Despite what you may have heard, it's not happening because the Greek government spent beyond its means and now is suffering the consequences. It's happening because Europe isn't sure whether it wants to be one country or many, and has in the meantime adopted policies that have created a humanitarian catastrophe for the Greek people.
South Carolina blaze brings tally of recent black church fires to seven
Cause of fire at Mount Zion AME Church in Greeleyville not yet known, but two weeks since Charleston shooting have seen several incidents of arson
Fire crews in South Carolina are battling a fire at a predominantly black church, the latest in a spate of blazes in the wake of the shooting of nine black churchgoers in Charleston two weeks ago.
No injuries have been reported in the fire at Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Greeleyville, about 65 miles (104km) from Charleston, and Clarendon county fire department said its officers had brought the blaze under control.
The cause of the fire is not yet known, and there have been reports of storms and lightning in the area earlier in the evening.
UN: Record numbers of refugees crossing Mediterranean to Europe
Record numbers of migrants made the perilous trip across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe in the first half of this year. The United Nations says many of them were fleeing war, conflict and persecution.
The United Nations Refugee Agency said in a report released Wednesday that “Europe is living through a maritime refugee crisis of historic proportions.”
The number of people, the agency reported, attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe swelled 83-percent to over 135,000 in the first half of 2015, compared with the same time last year.
The organization expects the situation to worsen as favorable summer weather allows people smugglers to dispatch more immigrants, often in unseaworthy boats.
Illegal immigration is a major concern for the European Union, where member states are debating how best to tackle human trafficking and how to share the burden of assisting new arrivals.
How is Kim Jong-un trying to make his mark?
Executions, terror, and a headlong nuclear pursuit may mask a deeper insecurity by the young leader, who doesn't yet have the gravitas or charm of his predecessors.
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — North Korea leader Kim Jong-un – to all appearances – may never have seemed so powerful.
Mr. Kim has recently carried out a series of executions and purges of suspected enemies, and North Korea’s nuclear program appears much farther along than observers would have imagined even a year ago. Those are the two main data points from outside the shadowy and isolated nation.
Recently, for example, Kim, now quite portly, was seen touring a gleaming new airport with his wife, Ri Sol-ju, and appearing proud and contented in photographs distributed by Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency. He visited shops that will sell luxury goods not readily available elsewhere in the North.
The ANC, the Cape, and the 'coloured' question
The question of the so-called "coloured vote" has bubbled to the surface of discussions centred around the political landscape of the Western Cape.
The Western Cape has since the advent of democracy been under the control of the now-defunct National Party, the African National Congress (ANC) and presently the Democratic Alliance (DA).
Even now, it is the anomaly in the South African political landscape – the only province not under the control of the ruling ANC.
And at the centre of it all lies the coloured community of mixed race heritage, which is spread across much of the lower and working class, sub-economic areas of the city Cape Flats.
A minority grouping in terms of national demographics, in the Western Cape the coloured community is still the majority population group and thus holds the key to the political palace in the province.
At the recently concluded eighth provincial conference of the ANC in the Cape, the issue of the coloured constituency and its political allegiance was a hot topic of debate and policy discussion.
China vows to bring 'modern civilisation' to Xinjiang
Military commander in mainly-Muslim region says army must develop economy in area and discourage "religious extremism".
China's military has vowed to bring "modern civilisation" to the country's largely Muslim Uighur Xinjiang region, where separatists have been working towards establishing an independent state.
The region's military commander and his aide wrote in an influential journal on Tuesday that the army must help develop the economy of the restive southern areas of the Xinjiang region, knows as East Turkestan to Uighurs, in order to establish what they called "modern civilisation".
The commander, Li Haiyang and its military commissar Miao Wenjiang said that soldiers must "ardently love" the area, in the latest edition of the bimonthly Communist Party magazine, Qiushi.
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